The leaders of Sinn Féin and the Ulster Unionist Party met again yesterday for talks amid growing hope that a deal will be concluded.
Contact is ongoing and a UUP source indicated more talks will be held early next week. The source claimed the talks remained "highly sensitive" and that they were held in an atmosphere described as "positive".
Mr Gerry Adams would not be drawn on the latest meeting in Belfast. But he did say he believed the Ulster Unionists he was dealing with "had the will to try to sort out" the issues confronting them. "The fact that we're still working through it is proof of this," he said.
He was attending a promotion for an all-Ireland children's cancer charity in west Belfast along with Mr Martin McGuinness, his party's chief negotiator, and former Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds.
Mr Reynolds, an architect of the current peace process, gave perhaps the clearest indication yet of the progress of the highly secretive talks.
"I think we're in the end game," he said. Speaking of the SF-UUP efforts to conclude a deal he said: "If the will is there I don't see why words can't be found. If we're down to words then we're on the end game road."
He added he had "every confidence that this time they'll find [the words] because I don't believe a majority of people in Northern Ireland want to even think about . . . going back to the bad old days."
He said the Good Friday agreement remained in place with everyone's signature. "It's a question of implementing it," he added. "The agreement was passed by the people with a vast majority in favour. No politician has a right to change that agreement which was endorsed by the people. You have to go back to the people, in my view, if you want to change the agreement." The SDLP yesterday complained that what were termed the "problem parties" held up political progress. Dr Séan Farren, the former finance minister, said: "We cannot go on having change held up because the UUP will not work the institutions and because the republican movement cannot meet the agreement's requirement of a commitment to exclusively peaceful and democratic means." He added: "The UUP in particular this weekend at its conference must reverse its mistaken policy at make clear it is pro-agreement."
Mr Reynolds's visit to the Whiterock area of west Belfast came amid increasing anticipation of an election before the end of November. Sinn Féin election posters have already appeared in Mr Adams's constituency.
One Sinn Féin source believes a complete deal, rather than a "half deal", represents the most positive scenario for the pro-agreement parties in general and the Ulster Unionists in particular.